Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays

[35] Darwin's “Origin of species” is better; that has at the bottom a strong logic, whether conclusive or otherwise, but is so rambling and confused in its merely literary statement, that it does itself no justice. A third book, Huxley's “Lectures,” combines with its logic a power of clear and symmetrical statement that gives it a rare charm, and makes it a contribution, not to science alone, but to literature.

In what is called poetry, belles-lettres, or pure literature, the osseous structure is of course hidden; and the symmetry suggested is always that of taste rather than of logic, though logic must be always implied, or at least never violated. In some of the greatest modern authors, however, there are limitations or drawbacks to this symmetry. Margaret Fuller said admirably of her favorite Goethe, that he had the artist's hand, but not the artist's love of structure; and in all his prose writings one sees a certain divergent and centrifugal habit, which completely overpowers him before the end of “Wilhelm Meister,” and shows itself even in the “Elective affinities,” which is, so far as I know, his most perfect prose work.

In Emerson, again, one observes a similar defect; his unit of structure is the sentence, and the periods seem combined merely by the accident of juxtaposition. Each sentence is a pearl, and the whole essay is so much clipped from the necklace; but it is fastened at neither end, and the beads slip off; when you try to replace them, you find that they belong in one place as well as in another.

Yet it is not enough for human beauty to possess symmetry of structure, within and without: there must be a beautiful coloring also, wealth of complexion, fineness